


this body is yours & mine

by inconocible



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Depictions of Illness, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Fulcrum, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Kanan Jarrus is the best dad in the galaxy, RebelsFourthExchange, Set between s1e10 and s1e11, Sick Character, Sickfic, Spacefam best fam, Sweet family feelings, physical affection, snuggles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-05 16:20:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14622456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inconocible/pseuds/inconocible
Summary: But she gets twelve hours of sleep, and she sleeps like shit, and her head is throbbing, and she gets up and greets Sabine, who is eating her space waffle, and who asks Hera twice if she’s okay, and Hera has no appetite, and her bones ache, and she settles into the cockpit, going over her mental checklists, struggling to focus, and she’s probably getting sick, and she can’t help but think that this is going to be another really, really bad day.





	this body is yours & mine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [prepare4trouble](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prepare4trouble/gifts).



> well hold on my darling  
> this mess was yours  
> now your mess is [mine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJDB0FDJDDU)

Hera groans as she sits up in bed. She presses one hand to her forehead. Her head feels heavy; each lek may as well weigh a hundred pounds.

She scrubs her hands over her too-warm face, takes a deep, weary, sighing breath in, lets it out slowly.

It’s going to be yet another terrible day, she thinks, reflecting back on the past 48 or so hours.

Like it or not – _admit_ it or not – she’s probably getting sick.

Damn.

She checks her chrono: At least eighteen hours until contact.

“Come on, Spectre-1,” she mutters, getting up to start her day, wishing that Kanan’s rendezvous time would hurry up already. She knows he has to be careful, calculated, wait for the perfect opening.

Still. She was exhausted last night when she finally got back, and passing out with her clothes still on in an empty bed didn’t help at all. She slept for nearly twelve hours, but she slept like shit, and she misses him, wanted nothing but to be curled up in his arms.

She stretches her own arms over her head, but her limbs don’t seem to want to work right, and she’s sore from being cramped up in that cargo container all day yesterday. She dresses, goes through the fresher to wash her face and brush her teeth, and makes for the galley, thinking maybe she just needs a cup of caf.

Sabine is up, munching on a toasted space waffle, lounging in the dejarik booth, reading something on her datapad. “Morning,” she says around a bite of waffle.

“Morning, sweetheart,” Hera says. She stands at the counter while the caf water is boiling, trying to stretch, but everything hurts. It hurts too much, not just her muscles but her head and her joints, too, and damn it, she is _not_ getting sick.

A chill runs down her spine, and she shivers. “Is it cold in here to you?” Hera asks.

Sabine tilts her head curiously at her, then shakes her head. “No?” she replies.

Okay, so maybe she _is_ getting sick. Hera sighs, and she sends up a plea to the small goddesses to spare her from the worst of it, to let it blow over and through her, to not mow her down. She mixes the caf powder into the boiled water. A coughing fit comes over her, and she grips the edge of the counter with one hand, the other hand clapping over her mouth, trying to hold it back.

“Are you okay?” Sabine asks.

“Yeah,” Hera says, not very convincingly, finishing fixing her caf, taking a sip, clearing her throat.

She opens the fridge, and then the freezer, scanning the choices – they’re getting low on food that isn’t ration bars and instant caf; a half a carton of eggs and a jar of Zeb’s sourdough starter are about all that’s in the fridge, a half-eaten box of space waffles and the last package of frozen ground bantha meat make up the entire contents of the freezer. She knows they’ve got some spices in the pantry, flour, a small bag of rice, a jar or two of pickled Loth radishes, and she knows that if Kanan and Zeb were here, she could have talked them into something good and hot for breakfast – fried eggs and fresh bread, at the very least, maybe even something creative with the bantha and the radishes – but she’s in no mood to cook anything herself, and the idea of a toasted space waffle just isn’t appealing to her right now.

In fact, nothing is.

She takes a sip of her caf, closes the fridge, pockets a ration bar from the pantry for later and tries not to think about how her stomach feels, or about how empty the pantry looks with just the spices and flour and rice and jars of pickles and four boxes of ration bars inside it, or about how tight their food budget might be now, after having spent more than half of their stockpiled credits just to get home yesterday, or about the grinding headache that’s only gotten worse the longer she’s been awake.

Another chill runs down Hera’s spine, and she closes her eyes, leans into it, riding it out, gritting her teeth against her headache.

She rummages in another cabinet, the one that holds stockpiled medical supplies, finds the jar of painkiller tablets. She hates using them, always wants to save their supplies for when someone’s really hurt, but she has to make it at least eighteen more hours in orbit before Kanan and Zeb and Ezra will be back, and then she has to get them all to Garel, and she really, really doesn’t want this day to get any worse than it already is, a half-hour into it.

She slips two of the painkillers into a pocket on her flight suit for later and swallows two for right now with a mouthful of caf, squares her shoulders, tells herself that she is _not_ getting sick. She was only on Ord Mantell for a couple hours. Surely, not long enough to catch the illness.

Hera turns to head for the cockpit, and meets Sabine’s watchful eyes, studying her closely.

“You sure you’re okay?” Sabine asks again.

“I’m fine,” Hera says. “Why?”

Sabine frowns. “You seem, I don’t know, off.”

Hera closes her eyes, trying to find some resolve, trying not to let on what’s wrong, not just yet. After all, she might not actually be getting sick. She might just be exhausted.

“I’ve just had a few bad days in a row,” she tells Sabine, heading for the cockpit, already mentally going over checklists – the compressor that needs to be cleaned, the navigational data she needs Chopper’s help crunching, that report she needs to write for Fulcrum, the cataloging and bartering and haggling they’ll need to do on Garel once Kanan gets back with the stolen supplies. “That mission on Ord Mantell was rough on me. The sooner the guys get back and we get a few days of downtime, the better.”

“Okay,” Sabine says, like she doesn’t believe her, just a touch on this side of insolent.

“I’ll let you know when they’re on the way back,” Hera calls back to Sabine as she leaves the galley. “I’m going to really need you to be looking sharp in case they attract any attention.”

“Oka-ay,” Sabine calls back, dragging the vowel sounds out, definitely insolent, now.

Hera sighs again. She walks into the cockpit and slumps into her chair, taking another fortifying sip of caf.

Chopper rolls over to her from his place at the terminal, nudging at her, blipping curiously about her exhausted body language.

“Oh, nothing,” Hera says. “It’s just – it’s gonna be a long day.”

-

It had all started about two and a half days ago now, when the call from Fulcrum had interrupted Hera and Kanan’s late-night planning session.

Feeling pinched for cash, they’d both reached out to their networks, and had gotten some information about the location of a possible cache of abandoned Clone Wars-era tech and supplies leftover from a battle on Saleucami. “We could get a good price for that,” Kanan had said, and so, after everyone else had gone to bed, they had sat down to figure it out.

But the comm had started beeping, Fulcrum’s symbol appearing, and Hera had bit her lip and ushered Kanan out of the cockpit.

“I need you to go to Ord Mantell,” Fulcrum had said.

“Ord Mantell?” Hera had asked, incredulous.

“Yes,” Fulcrum had said. “You’re the only agent I have right now who’s free and close enough.”

“I wouldn’t exactly say we’re in the neighborhood,” Hera had said.

“Go alone,” Fulcrum had said, continuing with their directive almost as though Hera hadn’t responded, certainly overlooking her snark. “No other Spectres, not even your droid. Take public transit. Do _not_ take the _Ghost_ or the _Phantom._ They’re too easily identified.”

“Ugh,” Hera had grumbled under her breath, but to the comm she had said, “Alright. What’s my target?”

And Fulcrum had told her: An elderly woman, Na’aya, selling jogan fruit on a particular street corner. “She can get you more information on my operative, and, hopefully, take you to the data,” Fulcrum had said. “You _must_ get the data off-world. I fear that my operative, Na’aya’s daughter, has been compromised. She sent a distress signal yesterday.”

“Understood,” Hera had said.

“But you must also gather as much data as possible,” Fulcrum had added. “Na’aya may be able to harbor you for as long as a week. We know the Empire is plotting something on Ord Mantell, but we don’t know what it is, or when it will happen. Be efficient, but be as thorough as possible. Finish my operative’s work.”

“Understood,” Hera had said again, though she had rolled her eyes at Fulcrum’s symbol on the screen before her.

“Contact me if you have any delay,” Fulcrum had said. “Fulcrum out.”

-

Kanan, as Hera predicted, had scowled his deepest scowl and crossed his arms and tried to pick a fight, a futile 20 minute explanation of his fears about Fulcrum’s influence over their crew. Hera had wanted none of it, had rummaged around in her room for her old, tattered traveling cloak, had scowled right back at him from under its hood.

“Zeb can take me, then,” she had said, trying to push past him, out of their room, but he had stopped her with a hand on her wrist.

“No, come on, let me do it, please,” he had said, and she had relented, – with the caveat, “shut the kriff up,” – had let him pilot the _Phantom_ to drop her off at the nearest public transit port, a few systems away.

On the way, they had discussed the upcoming week, Kanan still anxious about the Saleucami job. “We can’t just sit around for a week waiting for you,” he had argued, and they had devised a plan to leave Sabine and Chopper in charge of the _Ghost_ while Kanan, Zeb, and Ezra went down to investigate the supplies.

“I can’t exactly say I like it,” Hera had grumbled. “But I guess you should go ahead and do it. I’ll signal you with a meeting time and location, and hopefully we’ll be richer when I see you next.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Kanan had quipped, docking the _Phantom_ at the public transport terminal.

He had gotten up from the controls, had pulled her close, held her tight. “For the record, I do _not_ like this,” he had said.

“You don’t say, love,” Hera had said, rolling her eyes but still holding him in return, hugging him hard. It had been awhile since either of them had done a solo mission, at least like this.

“We work better as a team,” he had said.

“I don’t disagree with you,” she had said.

“So when are you going to tell that to Fulcrum?” he had asked, peering down at her, his mouth twisted into a frown.

She had shaken her head. “It’s more complicated than that, and you know it,” she had said.

He had sighed, resigned, had leaned in and cupped her jaw in both his hands, had pressed a kiss to her forehead. “May the Force be with you,” he had whispered.

-

After 12 hours in the cramped, loud public transport, she had arrived on Ord Mantell. The transport had been an overnight, and morning was starting to break on the planet’s surface, but she had barely been able to sleep on the flight, felt exhausted by this mission already.

She had pulled her traveling cloak tighter around her in a futile effort to shield herself from the cold, heavy rain beating down on the planet. As she got her bearings, located herself on the street map, compared it to Fulcrum’s directions, a speeder had zipped past, and had dipped down into the mud on the side of the road, flicking it up at her. “Watch out, tailheaded bitch!” the driver had yelled.

Hera had tucked the tips of her lekku deep within the hood of her cloak, had set off in the direction Fulcrum had indicated in her transmission.

Before long, she had entered a more run-down, mostly residential district of the capital city with older-looking architecture and streets that stopped presenting themselves in front of her in a grid, started tangling and twisting together. She had observed pairs of stormtroopers posted on the street corners at first, but they soon dwindled down the deeper Hera got into the district – likely there to keep those inside from getting out, not the opposite, Hera had thought. They’d all eyed her as she’d walked, but none had made any movement toward stopping her or asking for her scandocs.

The rain had eased up from a downpour to a drizzle while she’d walked, but there were barely any signs of life outside the dwellings in this district. There were, however, signs of _death_ , Hera had realized with an unsettled jolt of wariness. A long row of doors had been painted over with hasty Xs. Hera had kept walking, observing three Twi’leki children, sitting listlessly on the sidewalk outside one of the houses with an X on the door, looking drugged, or sick. As she had turned the corner, she had heard a song in Ryl trilling up from an alleyway, mournful: A funeral song.

Hera had pulled her cloak more tightly around her. She was clearly in a mostly-Twi’leki district, and there was very clearly something _wrong_ here.

She had finally come upon the small market area in the center of the maze of residence – produce and breads and other things – but almost none of the shops had been open. She had approached the stand that proudly advertised Na’aya’s Jogans (“Jogan, Meiloorun, Shuura, Muja, and More!”) in both Aurebesh and written Ryl. An aged Twi’lek woman, presumably the namesake owner of the stand, had narrowed her eyes at her from around a display of meilooruns.

“Sure could use a mailoorun,” Hera had said carefully.

“Twelve credits,” the woman had said.

That was a lot for one piece of fruit, and Hera had scowled, despite herself, as she had offered her credit chip to the woman.

“You’re not from around here,” the woman had commented as she transferred the credits and handed the chip back to Hera.

“No,” Hera had said.

Hera had chosen her fruit, had bitten into it, genuinely hungry from the long overnight flight, trying to savor its sweetness even as her mind was working at top speed, even as all of her instincts were telling her to get off-planet as fast as she could, even as the funeral song drifted down the block and into the marketplace.

“I’ve been traveling quite a bit,” Hera had said. She had taken another bite of the fruit. “Most recently, by the light of Lothal’s moons.”

The woman had straightened up at that. She had shuffled around to the front of the fruit stand, and, her eyes still narrowed at Hera, had pulled the shutters closed, keyed a string of numbers into the locking pad.

“You need to come with me, traveler,” she had said. “Quickly.”

-

Na’aya had led her through a twisting maze of alleyways, the residential area denser, now, and Hera had trailed her, her hood pulled over her face to protect her from the rain, carefully observing the same eerie lifelessness in this section of the city that she had in the section she’d just walked through, until her guide had abruptly stopped in front of one door, had keyed in the access code.

When the door had swished closed behind them, Hera had lowered her hood, shaking droplets of water onto the mat in the entryway.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” Na’aya had said. “She shouldn’t have sent you.”

Hera had tilted her head curiously. “What makes you say that?”

The old woman had hung her head, shaking it, frowning, sighing. The lines on her face and the tenseness of her lekku all spoke of trouble, but she didn’t answer Hera’s question.

“Do you know why Fulcrum sent me?” Hera had asked.

Na’aya had fixed Hera with a serious look. “Well,” she had started. “She either wants to kill you, or she doesn’t realize how bad it’s gotten.”

The sound of the funeral song, the images of the doors with the Xs, of the listless children, all rushed into Hera’s mind.

“What do you mean?” she had asked slowly.

“Come and see my daughter,” Na’aya had said, leading Hera through the house, to a closed door in the very back. She had knocked, and had gently opened the bedroom door.

Another Twi’lek woman, older than Hera but probably not by more than ten years, her skin the same faded blue as Na’aya’s, had been laying in the bed, a damp rag on her forehead. She had pushed up to sitting, groaning with the effort.

“Did Ashla send you?” the woman had asked, her voice soft and croaky.

“Who?” Hera had said, trying not to show how unnerved she was at the feeling of death in the bedroom, the scent of sickness.

The woman had coughed, shivered, closed her eyes, taken a few deep breaths. “You would know her as Fulcrum,” she said in that same wavering voice.

“Yes,” Hera had said, though she hadn’t known that Fulcrum was a she, nor that her name was Ashla.

“Her passcode?” the woman had asked.

“By the light of Lothal’s moons,” Hera had answered, and the woman had nodded, swift and quick, as much as she could be in her weakened state.

“You need to get the data off-world before it’s too late,” the woman had said.

“Sheela,” Na’aya had said, caution in her voice. “You trust this woman with your work?”

“I have to,” Sheela had replied. “Give me the data sticks.”

Na’aya had sighed, crossed the bedroom to a workstation that held a datapad and a collection of data sticks. She had brought them all to her daughter’s bed, laid them in her lap, the blanket pooling under their weight. Na’aya had sat down on the edge of the bed, pressing her hand to Sheela’s forehead.

“You’re burning up,” Na’aya had said.

“I’m probably dying, mother,” Sheela had said, deadpan, flat. She had tapped a few commands into the datapad, connected a stick to the datapad, clearly copying material over.

“What –“ Hera had started, but Sheela had held a hand up, cut her off.

“Five years ago,” she had said. “My son, Rol, he was six when Ashla came. He was – he was strange, even as a baby. He could sense things before they happened, he could stop things without touching them. He –“ she’d looked around the room, her voice dropping even quieter, almost a whisper. She pulled the data stick from the datapad, inserted a different one. “He had _powers._ Like they say the Jedi did, in the old days.”

Hera had been able to feel the way her eyebrows arched, practically up to the base of her lekku, but she hadn’t been able to stop the surprise that washed over her.

“Ashla came to our home,” Sheela had continued. “She told me she wanted to – to work against the Empire, and to protect Rol.” She’d sighed, her voice breaking, swapping out another data stick to the datapad. “So I let her take him,” she’d said. “I let her take my son.”

Hera had always suspected that Fulcrum’s interest in the Spectres had something to do with Kanan, somehow – little side comments, missions to which his abilities were integral – but she’d never gotten this close to confirmation before that Fulcum might have had some connection to the old Jedi order.

“I still wish you hadn’t let that Togruta witch touch him,” Na’aya had groused, half under her breath.

“And what, Mother, let him get taken by the Empire’s shadows instead? Ashla showed me she works against the shadows. And, for these past five years, I helped her work against them.” Sheela had coughed; blood had come up on the rag she pressed to her mouth. She’d inserted another data stick into the datapad. “I took work, as a dancer and as an escort, spying on the Empire and the Black Sun for Ashla the whole time, feeding her information, getting many other women to help me spy.”

“And now they kill you for it,” Na’aya had said.

“Yes,” Sheela had said. “But Ashla will still get the rest of my data.”

“What is happening on this planet?” Hera had said, urgent, starting to put the pieces together.

Sheela had sighed, inserted still another new data stick into the datapad. “One of my operatives got caught by the Black Sun, and they figured out there was a whole network of us here on Ord Mantell, spying on them and their Imperial scum friends. The Black Sun poisoned us.”

“What?” Hera had asked, incredulous.

“They released disease upon the Twi’lek sector,” Sheela had said. “In the water. I think it’s a modified version of Bybbec Fever. It’s been moving quickly. Some are immune, especially elders who had a version of Bybbec before, but most of the younger ones are not. People get sick fast, they die fast. They are killing our people.”

Hera had felt her eyes widen, had felt herself gasp before she even realized she was doing it. “I’ve seen the Empire use this tactic before,” she said, feeling adrenaline spike in her blood, feeling fear blaring an alarm in the back of her mind. “You can only get the cure from a clinic…”

“And we have to register with the Empire to get it,” Sheela had finished. “Yes. They’re trying to smoke us out, to get us to confess to our spying.” She had coughed again. “I refuse.”

“You would rather die than betray the other rebels,” Hera had said, more of a statement than question.

“Yes,” Sheela had said, looking Hera in the eye. “Wouldn’t you?”

The moment had lingered between them, the serious set of Sheela’s jaw, Hera thinking of her family back on the _Ghost_ , of conversations she and Kanan had had over the years about finishing the mission in favor of rescuing a crew member left behind.

“Yes,” Hera had finally said, small, stoic, unhappy. “I would.”

Na’aya had harrumphed, clearing her throat, frowning. “This girl doesn’t have to,” she had said, turning to Hera. “You still have time to get off-planet before you get sick.” Her frown had deepened. “Maybe,” she’d added.

Hera had sighed, covered her face with one hand, shaking her head. It took a lot for her to feel in over her head on a mission these days, but she was rapidly approaching that point. She’d uncovered her face, watching as Sheela tapped on the screen of the datapad, her face furrowed in concentration.

“There,” Sheela had said, handing the datapad to Hera, closing her eyes, a fever chill washing visibly over her as her body shook into it. “That should be everything Ashla needs. The last of my work.”

Hera had pocketed the datapad, had frowned. “Fulcrum asked me to stay for a _week_ ,” she’d said. “Figure out what the Empire was planning.”

Sheela had shaken her head. “You’ll certainly get sick if you stay for a week. It’s too late,” she’d said. “This is what they were planning. Biological warfare.”

“Genocide,” Na’aya had spat. She had pressed her hand to Sheela’s face again, had sighed, had bent to kiss her daughter’s forehead. The old woman had straightened, turned to Hera. “They’re restricting public travel of all Twi’lek people off-planet,” she’d said. “But I have an idea.”

Na’aya had been halfway to the bedroom door, and Hera had turned to follow her, when Sheela had called, “Wait!”

Hera had turned back to her.

“Wait,” Sheela had said. “My son. Rol. Can you –“ she’d sighed, long and weary. “There is a message on the datapad for him. Can you make sure Ashla gives it to him? Make sure he knows –“ She’d breathed in a shaky, broken breath, and one tear had rolled down her cheek. “Make sure he knows how much I love him.”

Hera had nodded. “I’ll try,” she’d said.

“I should have told him more, before it was too late,” Sheela had said, soft, almost to herself, and Hera had felt something constricting her chest.

“Come on,” Na’aya had said. “We’re running out of time.”

-

And that was how Hera had found herself standing in the spaceport at Na’aya’s side, the rain pouring down on them even harder now, negotiating with one of the most pissed-off Rodians she’d ever encountered.

The Rodian, a captain of a trade (and, apparently, smuggling) ship who was known only by her first name, Eeza, evidentially owed Na’aya a long-standing favor, or, at least, Na’aya claimed she did.

But Eeza was scared of the Empire, scared of getting caught, and scared of her crew getting sick, and their negotiations weren’t getting very far.

“We’re getting the hell off this planet,” Eeza had said.

“Convenient,” Hera had snarked, “so am I.”

“You don’t even want to know how much it would cost to smuggle you, a potentially infectious Twi’lek, out of here,” Eeza had said.

Hera had sighed, frustrated, the limits of her patience bypassed. “Come on, five minutes ago you said no deal, no price. Now you have a price? Name it.”

Eeza had glared up at Hera, obviously worn down a bit by the past few minutes of intense discussion. “Fine. Fifty-thousand.”

Before Hera could react, Na’aya had butted in. “Fifty? Come on. This girl has been on our planet for barely two hours. She’s not going to get your crew sick! I don’t even think any non-Twi’lekis will get sick from whatever this is.”

“Twenty-thousand,” Hera had counter-offered, trying to school the shock off of her face.

Eeza had laughed. “The Empire just put a quarantine no-travel order on all Twi’leks on Ord Mantell,” she said, and this time, Hera had been unable to keep her facial expressions from showing the anger and fear that surged through her at that. “Fifty,” Eeza had repeated.

“The Empire will _not_ keep me from my mission and my family,” Hera had said, a little more fiercely than she’d meant to. “Thirty.”

“Come on,” Na’aya had said. “Get this girl back to her children.”

Eeza had narrowed her eyes. “Forty-five.”

“Thirty-five,” Hera had countered, wondering how, or why, Na’aya had made the assumption that Hera had children back home, not bothering to correct her. (She was essentially right, after all.)

“Eeza, my friend, do not let her die here, like my daughter will,” Na’aya had said, shaking an annoyed fist at Eeza.

“Fine. Forty,” Eeza had conceded. “Not a penny lower. And you ride in a sealed cargo crate the whole way.”

Hera had sighed, thinking about how that was more than two-thirds the credits she and Kanan had in their savings, at the moment. Forty thousand creds could have been a big chunk of upgrades for the _Ghost_ , the engine swap she’d been dying to do on the _Phantom_ , new blasters and armor for the whole crew, food for months. But she had to get home, had to get the hell off this planet.

“Deal,” she had said, weary, handing Eeza her credit chip.

And that was how Hera had found herself squeezing into a crate, the seal hissing behind her, curling up in her damp cloak, hoping that Eeza would do as she’d agreed, would comm Sabine at the helm of the _Ghost_ and arrange a drop-off point.

What an utterly shit day it had been, she’d thought, trying to get comfortable in the cargo container.

-

Finally, almost 20 hours later, Hera had stirred out of the light, fitful sleep she’d fallen into, awoken by the lurch of movement outside the crate. The container had hissed open, Sabine’s worried face swimming into Hera’s view, Chopper right behind her.

“What happened?” Sabine had asked.

Hera had been cold, and shaky, and exhausted, and all she’d been able to think about was a hot shower and her bed, even though she knew she needed to comm Fulcrum, catch up with Kanan.

“Later, sweetie, okay?” Hera had said, following Sabine through the airlock of Eeza’s ship and onto the _Ghost._ Her muscles had burned from being cramped inside the crate for so long, and it had taken all of her effort to pay attention to what Sabine was trying to tell her about the Saleucami job. All she’d really absorbed from Sabine was that Kanan estimated he was another day or so away from extraction, which meant she’d have enough time to get some rest.

-

But she gets twelve hours of sleep, and she sleeps like shit, and her head is throbbing, and she gets up and greets Sabine, who is eating her space waffle, and who asks Hera twice if she’s okay, and Hera has no appetite, and her bones ache, and she settles into the cockpit, going over her mental checklists, struggling to focus, and she’s probably getting sick, and she can’t help but think that this is going to be another really, really bad day.

-

Finally, _finally,_ Hera’s comm crackles to life, startling her. “Spectre-1 to _Ghost,_ ” Kanan’s saying, and he sounds rushed, his breath audibly huffing in and out between words, and Hera can just make out the sound of blaster fire in the background.

“ _Ghost_ here,” Hera says, trying to wake up. She got a fair amount of work done today, though not as much as she’d wanted: Chopper had helped her with the nav data, and she’d sketched out a solid outline of her report for Fulcrum, but she hadn’t had the strength to get down into the guts of the ship to work on that compressor she’d meant to clean.

Her body had been feeling worse and worse as the day had stretched on, and Kanan’s call startled her from the pained, exhausted light nap she’d inadvertently fallen into a couple hours ago, sleeping sitting up in the pilot’s seat.

Her head aches, and her neck is sore, and so are all her other joints and muscles, and she feels like she’s burning up inside, and she’s terrified, now that she’s awake and able to take a brief inventory of her body, that she’s going to get sick, that she already _is_ sick, but she tells herself she can do this.

“We’re gonna be coming in hot,” Kanan’s saying, the background still blaster fire and the puffs of his breath as he runs. “We got caught. Bad intel. No cargo, but we made some friends.”

“Oh, great,” Hera says.

She starts to roll her eyes, but they hurt too much, the ache behind her eye sockets making stars bloom in front of her face if she moves her eyes too abruptly.

She fishes in her flight suit for the painkillers, pops them in her mouth and swallows them down with the last of her cold caf from this morning. She clenches her jaw and squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, drawing a deep breath in, then opens her eyes, unclenches her jaw, sighs the breath out hard. She can do this.

She can do this.

“What’s your ETA?” she asks, and she turns her head as far away from the comm as she can get, covering her mouth with her elbow as a cough wracks her.

Just get everyone to Garel, she tells herself, examining the blood she leaves behind in the crook of her elbow after she finishes coughing, trying not to panic. Then Kanan can help figure out what the hell to do.

“Uh, whenever Zeb gets here with the _Phantom_ to evac us,” Kanan says. A pause, then: “Oh, no.”

“What?” Hera asks.

“It was a setup,” Kanan says, almost to himself, distantly, as though he’s moved his wrist comm away from his mouth. She hears the unmistakable hum of his lightsaber igniting. It’s echoed just a few seconds later by the hum of Ezra’s new saber igniting, too, and Hera realizes this is the first time he’s had to actually use that thing in a battle.

“Stay behind me, Ezra,” she hears Kanan faintly say. “You don’t know what you’re doing with that yet.”

Hera can barely hear Ezra’s retort, but it sounds like, “Well, don’t you learn to swim by jumping into the deep end?”

“No,” Kanan ferociously responds.

Hera sighs, frowning and shaking her head at how sideways this job has gone. She was hoping, at least, for some success here, to recover some of what she spent to get off Ord Mantell.

“I’ve got the engines running,” she calls at the comm, though she’s pretty sure Kanan isn’t listening, tries not to think about _how_ sure she is that he’s probably fighting the Inquisitor right now.

She gets to her feet, sways unsteadily, feeling something in her spike scarily as she stands up. “Woah,” she breathes, trying to get her balance. Chopper blats out a little questioning noise of surprise. “I’m fine,” she says, taking a couple big, gulping breaths. “I’m fine. Program the nav computers for several safe jumps to get us away from Imperial attention and to Garel.”

Chopper twitters another question at her. “No,” Hera says, trying to focus. “Not Lothal, at least not at first. We’re sticking to the plan until Kanan changes it.”

She covers her mouth with her hand to cough, and when she draws her hand back, there’s blood on it.

The edges of her vision have gone black, and she shakes her head, trying to clear them. Keeping one hand on the back of the seats to steady herself, she makes her way shakily to the back of the cockpit, sticks her head into the hall.

“Spectre-5!” she yells, gripping the frame of the cockpit door, hoping Sabine won’t notice her unsteadiness. “I need you!”

Sabine emerges from her room. “Are they coming?” she asks.

“With friends,” Hera says. “And no cargo.”

Sabine slaps her hand over her face, shaking her head, groaning out an _ugh_ in the back of her throat. “Top gun?” Sabine asks, already making for the ladder.

“Please,” Hera says. “When the guys get back, swap out with Zeb, send Ezra to the nose, and you and Kanan back me up with weapons and nav in the cockpit.”

“Got it,” Sabine calls down from the top of the ladder.

Hera turns back to the cockpit. “I hope so,” she says, under her breath.

-

Ten or fifteen minutes later – Hera loses count, her mind won’t stop drifting its attention to the fact that she’s _definitely_ sick, and very much in pain – she feels the lurch of the _Phantom_ docking, the unmistakable hit of a TIE’s blaster bolt on the rear deflector shield barely a second later.

“We gotta go!” Kanan is bellowing down the hall, and Hera grits her teeth, sits up straighter, gripping the flight controls, barely able to start spinning up the hyperdrive before she’s swarmed by TIEs.

The cockpit door swishes open, and Ezra, leading the way, dashes through and down into the nose gun; Kanan slides into the copilot’s seat and Hera feels instead of sees Sabine land in the seat behind her. As Hera tries to get her bearings, a TIE explodes just in front of them.

“Nice, Ezra!” Kanan calls.

“Zeb’s up there?” Hera asks.

“Yeah,” Sabine answers. “Locked and loaded.”

“Good,” Hera says. She starts to maneuver them away from the Imperial fighters. “What happened?” she asks, not looking at Kanan.

“Ran into an old friend,” he says, dark sarcasm in his tone all but confirming the Inquisitor’s appearance. “What happened to you? Thought we weren’t gonna see you for a few more days.”

Right, Hera remembers, she hasn’t filled him in on Ord Mantell.

“Mission went way sideways, had to smuggle myself off-planet,” she says. “We can compare notes later.”

“Yeah,” Kanan says. Another TIE explodes behind them, and Hera hears Zeb’s faint whoop of victory.

Hera pushes on the throttle, trying to get them to a safe distance to jump to hyperspace, but they’re being swarmed by TIES, Ezra and Zeb yelling about how many of them there are. Hera keeps having to break off at the last moment, her approach cut off. The ship shakes violently as one of the TIEs lands another hit on the rear deflector shield.

“Rear shield at 45 percent!” Sabine calls, nervous. Chopper chimes in that there’s still three minutes until the hyperdrive will be online.

Hera can feel her breath coming faster and shallower, can feel sweat running down her forehead. She closes her eyes, shakes her head, trying to focus, and nearly collides with another TIE, breaks away at the last possible second.

“Woah!” Kanan calls out. “What was that?”

Hera bites her lip. She didn’t want to tell him like this, but –

“You still remember how to fly this thing, right?” she asks, glancing at him sidelong.

Surprise and worry and confusion move visibly over his face, his brow furrowing deeply, his mouth quirking down into a frown. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “Why?”

Ezra explodes another TIE fighter, but his victory shout is short-lived: An Imperial Star Destroyer has appeared in front of them, jumped in out of hyperspace. “Karabast,” Ezra yells. “Kanan!”

“Yeah, I see it,” Kanan calls down to the nose gun, but he keeps his gaze fixed on Hera.

“No reason,” Hera says, taking in another deep, shaky breath, sighing it out harshly, trying to breathe normally, trying not to start coughing again. “Just making sure.”

“Hera,” Kanan starts, wary, concerned.

There’s no time, she has to _go_ , and she feels the edges of her vision blacking out again. She grits her teeth as she flips the _Ghost_ around and through a pair of TIEs, a frustrated yell pulling itself from her body as she skims the surface of the Destroyer, trying to fly close enough to avoid its guns.

It’s only kind of working. “Losing shields!” Sabine calls out.

“Hera!” Kanan says. “What are you –“

But her blood is pounding in loud in her ears, and she can’t hear Kanan anymore, and she’s losing the ability to see straight, the blackness around the edges of her vision spreading, and her hands won’t grip the fight controls properly. _Just a couple more minutes_ , she thinks desperately, but it’s too late, everything sounds distant and far away.

As she feels conscious slipping from her grasp, Hera turns her head, locks eyes with Kanan. “You fly,” she gasps, and she feels her body slump over out of the seat against her will; feels, just barely, the unnatural sensation of being caught by the Force, her head four inches off the floor, before she passes out.

-

Kanan isn’t sure if it’s the feeling of Hera passing out, his loud, “Hera!” or the unshielded spike of panic he knows must be bleeding over into his bond with Ezra, but something makes Ezra _move_. As Kanan is diving to catch Hera, first catching her body with the Force moments before it slams to the floor, then sliding his hands under her shoulders as he falls to his knees, cradling Hera’s head in his lap, Ezra _leaps_ , up and out of the nose gun, executing a forward flip over Kanan that Kanan knows he’ll be proud of later, when he actually has the mental capacity to think about it.

“Sabine,” Ezra is calling from where he’s landed in a three-point crouch behind Kanan, “get the gun.”

(Kanan distantly wonders if Ezra’s been watching Skywalker’s vids, the ones Master Billaba saved in the Holocron, because where in the name of the Force did Ezra learn to do _that_?)

“Okay,” Sabine says, shaky, shocked, but following Ezra’s directions, dashing forward, around Kanan, sliding down into the nose gun.

Ezra places his hand on Kanan’s right shoulder, leans around him, peering down at Hera. “Kanan,” he says, low, quiet, right there in his ear, pushing something – confidence in their team, in their family, maybe – through their bond, clearly trying to comfort Kanan. “You fly, right? I got her.”

Kanan turns his head, meets Ezra’s eyes, realizes _no one is flying the ship_ – okay, that’s kind of an exaggeration, because Chopper was plugged into his port, talking to the hyperdrive, before Hera passed out, but _still_ – and he realizes Ezra’s right.

Later, when he’s got the time to think about it, he’ll be so, so proud of how grown-up Ezra is right now, how connected they are, how deep their training bond has felt between them these past few weeks, how _good_ it feels to have another Jedi at his back, after all these years.

Right now, he just realizes that Ezra is right, that he needs to get them the hell out of here.

Kanan stands up carefully, transferring Hera’s head from his lap to Ezra’s, slides into the pilot’s seat. It’s been ages since he’s actually gotten to fly the _Ghost_ , but he doesn’t have time right now to reminisce on those days when it was just Hera and Chopper and him, when he insisted she let him take it for a shakedown run, get to know it, just in case. He’s always been a decent pilot, but even back then, she never wanted to let him touch her ship, only relented to his flying on the grounds of emergency back-up training.

Well, this is an emergency, he thinks.

“Chopper,” Kanan calls over his shoulder, and Chopper transfers control of the ship back to manual, and Kanan flips around the end of the Star Destroyer, just missing another hit to the rear deflector shield.

“I need that hyperdrive,” he says, and Chopper twitters that Hera has a course set, jumps plotted, and that the hyperdrive will be online in 45 seconds.

“Okay, then let’s go,” Kanan says, and he manages to thread the gap of three TIE fighters, slamming down on the throttle, giving it everything he can, putting as much distance between the Empire and the _Ghost_ as possible _._

Chopper chirps out that the hyperdrive is online. “Hang on,” Kanan says, and he slams the handle forward, letting out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding as the ship slides into the jump, not sure if he’s ever been more relieved to see the streak of stars in hyperspace through the viewport.

Kanan turns back to where Ezra still kneels on the floor between the pilot’s and copilot’s chairs, still holding Hera’s head in his lap. Ezra locks eyes with Kanan for a long moment. “Hera’s sick,” Ezra pronounces.

Kanan almost laughs. “Yeah, no shit,” he says, kneeling at Ezra’s side, reaching for Hera.

“Seriously,” Ezra says.

Ezra’s hand is on Hera’s forehead, and Kanan presses his there, too, his fingertips brushing Ezra’s, and he hums a thoughtful, unhappy sound in the back of his throat at how _hot_ her skin feels under his hand.

“Here,” Kanan says, glancing over at Ezra, one of his hands questing for the pulse point at Hera’s neck, “let me –“ but Hera stirs, moans a pained, broken sound, gasps in a breath, and Kanan moves his hand from her neck to her upper arm, stabilizing her.

“What’s going on?” Sabine calls, emerging from the nose gun.

“I don’t know,” Kanan says.

Hera sits up with a sudden groan, Ezra and Kanan’s hands falling away from her. “Ah, sorry,” she sighs, pressing her own hand to her forehead, now, and she sounds weak, and she looks pale. Ezra slides away, and Kanan reaches for her again, both hands on her shoulders.

“I thought you said you were fine,” Sabine says.

The cockpit door swishes open. “Funny bit of flying, there,” Zeb is saying, a teasing air, but his tone switches, his teasing abruptly morphing into concern. “Uh, everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Hera says, at the same time Kanan is saying, “no.”

Hera shifts her weight, like she’s trying to get up, and Kanan tightens his grip on her shoulders, says, “Hey, let me help you.”

She gets to her feet, but barely, and she leans her weight heavily into Kanan’s hands. “I don’t think any of the rest of you are going to get sick,” she says, not quite meeting Kanan’s eyes. “Just my species.”

“Is this why your mission went sideways?” Kanan asks.

Hera bites her lip. “There’s a problem on Ord Mantell,” she says quietly. She looks around the room, glances up at Kanan, and he gets it: Whatever it is, not in front of the kids. “Maybe I just need to lay down.”

“Let me help you,” Kanan says again, trying not to let his concern spiral out of control. He puts one arm around Hera’s waist, securing her next to him for the short walk to their room.

“Good job, guys,” Kanan says, glancing around the cockpit. “Let’s get together an initial damage assessment and figure out how long we’re gonna be until Garel, okay?”

“Okay,” Ezra, Sabine and Zeb say together.

“Okay,” Kanan says, and he walks Hera out of the cockpit.

-

“You’re burning up,” Kanan says. Hera is sitting on the edge of the bed, and he’s sitting beside her, his right arm around her, his left hand on her forehead. She leans the left side of her head into his right shoulder.

“I’ve had a fever for almost 24 hours now,” she says.

“It’s high,” he says.

“Kanan,” Hera says. She closes her eyes, sighs. “The Empire –“

“Um, Kanan?” Sabine’s worried voice cuts in, tinny through his wrist comm.

Kanan lifts his wrist to his mouth. “Yeah?” he says.

“So, Hera didn’t tell me this when I picked her up yesterday,” Sabine says, an annoyed air in her voice, “but, uh, there’s a quarantine on Ord Mantell?”

“Really,” Kanan says, flat, peering down at Hera.

“Against Twi’leks only,” Sabine adds. “Some form of –“ she pauses, trying to pronounce the word, “Bybbec Fever?”

“Oh,” Kanan says, more a sigh than a word. His mind is working a parsec a second, and he’s feeling more and more upset the more Sabine talks.

Hera sighs. “This wasn’t how I was going to tell you,” she mutters, turning her head and pressing her face into Kanan’s chest.

“Uh, the quarantine notice says that it’s not harmful to any other species, but that it’s – fatal – to Twi’leks?” Kanan hears Sabine take a couple shaky breaths. “Kanan?” she asks, her voice panicky, cracking with fear.

Hera takes Kanan’s hand, pulls his wrist over. “It’ll be okay, sweetheart,” Hera says into Kanan’s comm, surprisingly confident. “We’ll figure it out.”

“But Hera –“ Sabine says.

“Look, I was only on the planet for two hours, okay?” Hera says. “I think I’m just exhausted.”

“Okay,” Sabine says in a small voice.

“Are you guys running the damage reports?” Hera asks.

“Yeah,” Sabine says, guilty, caught. “I mean, we will.”

“Okay,” Hera says. “We all just need to regroup. We’ll figure it out.”

“Okay,” Sabine says.

Hera waits until the comm has disconnected, sighs. “Hold me,” she whispers.

“Here,” Kanan says, and he reaches down, unlaces her boots, slides them gently off her feet, tucks them under the bed. He straightens, reaches for her cap and flying goggles, slides them gently off, watching the way Hera flinches at his touch. “Sorry,” he says.

“No, love, it’s not you,” she says. “Everything just – hurts.”

Kanan gets up, fetches her sleep shorts, neatly folded on top of her dresser, and when he turns back around, she’s mostly out of her flight suit, down to her tank top. She hands the flight suit over, and Kanan hangs it in the closet, the way she likes. She steps into her sleep shorts, slides under the blanket.

Kanan sits back down on the edge of the bed, lays his hand gently on his forehead, leaning over her. “Have you taken anything?” he asks.

“Couple painkillers this morning, couple when you called,” she says. “They didn’t really help. Slept like shit last night, took a nap for a couple hours before you called.”

He runs his hand up from her forehead to the base of her right lek, and she closes her eyes, leans into his touch, so he runs his hand back down, starting a slow, stroking pattern.

“What can I do?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” Hera says, her eyes still closed. “Wait and see if I die, I guess.”

“That isn’t funny,” he says.

“I know,” she says. She sighs.

“Hold me,” she says again, so he bends down, unlaces and slides out of his boots, unbuckles his shoulder pauldron and hip holsters, lays them down on the floor next to his boots, and stretches out next to her, on top of the blanket. He rolls onto his side, lays his arm out, and she rolls onto her side, pressing her back into his chest, her head pillowed on his bicep, his other arm draped over her waist.

“Fulcrum’s operative,” Hera starts, slow, tired. “Sheela. She and her friends had a big spy ring going on Ord Mantell, getting all kinds of dirt on the Empire and the Black Sun, but they got caught.” Hera sighs. “They’re trying to smoke the rebel spies out,” she says.

“Biological warfare?” Kanan asks, not wanting to believe it, but knowing all the same that it wouldn’t be the first time.

“Yeah,” Hera says. “Something in the water at first, but I think it probably went airborne. People get sick quickly, they die quickly, unless they’re old enough, or lived on Ryloth long enough, to have had Bybbec before, gotten immunity. Most of them haven’t. I saw kids just – dying, in the streets. I think Sheela was pretty much on her death bed, too.”

Hera shivers in Kanan’s arms, a chill washing over her, and she presses her face into the pillowcase, coughs, and when she pulls her head back, there’s a blood stain.

“You okay, love?” Kanan asks, immediately wondering why he did – he knows she’s not.

“The Empire releases the disease, and they hold the cure,” Hera says, as though he didn’t ask. “You have to register to get it. And when you register.”

“You get caught,” Kanan says. He sighs. “What are we gonna do?”

“I don’t know. I was only on the kriffin’ planet for two hours,” Hera says, frustration filtering through her exhaustion and weakness. “Had to pay this Rodian chick forty-thousand to get smuggled off in a cargo crate.”

“Seriously?” Kanan asks.

Hera sighs. “Yeah. I really didn’t think I’d get sick. I did get Fulcrum’s data, though.”

Kanan tries to suppress the anger that flares at her mention of Fulcrum. “Screw Fulcrum,” he says. “Did they have any idea –“

“No,” Hera says. “I don’t think she did.”

“She?” Kanan asks.

“We can talk about it later, love,” Hera says. “I’m so tired. It’s been such a kriffin’ long, bad day.”

“Okay,” Kanan says, trying to think, trying to figure out what to do. “Get some rest.” He pushes up onto an elbow, leans over her, kisses the side of her forehead.

-

Kanan has been wracking his brain, trying to figure out what he’s gonna do. His neck is sore from being bent so tensely over his datapad, though, so he sets it down on the desk, closes his eyes, stretches his neck and shoulders and arms, reaching for the Force, trying to think.

After Hera had fallen asleep, he’d joined the kids back in the cockpit, intuition telling him they needed him and that Hera needed to be left alone, and he’d been right: He’d walked in on Sabine, being hugged by both Ezra and Zeb, crying, panicking, somehow blaming herself for Hera’s current condition.

(“Sweetheart,” Zeb had been saying, when Kanan walked in, “everyone gets sick sometimes, and those two are the most stubborn I’ve ever met about trying to hide it.”

“Who,” Sabine had asked, “Kanan and Hera?”

“Oh yeah,” Zeb had said, laughing as Kanan had walked in. “Hey, Kanan, remember that one time you caught the Corellian Flu, and you were puking your guts out, and you were _still_ trying to act like nothing was wrong?”

“Yeah,” Kanan had sighed. “Don’t remind me.”)

So they’d all talked Sabine down, and they’d finished the damage reports – rear deflectors were blown to shit, and needed hours to recharge, but everything else seemed mostly fine – and they’d looked at Chopper’s nav course: Six jumps, nearly 18 hours in hyperspace, to get them from Saleucami to Garel.

“We should probably go to Lothal,” Ezra had said, arguing that the point of Garel had been to sell the things they took from Saleucami, and, well, they’d come home empty-handed.

“Why Lothal?” Kanan had asked.

Ezra had shrugged. “Just a feeling,” he’d said. “Maybe Jho knows another job.”

“Maybe,” Kanan had said. “We’ll figure it out when we get to Garel. Let’s stay Hera’s course for now.”

Lunch had been cooked – fried eggs and spiced rice – and Zeb had made some bread dough to proof while they were in hyperspace, and everyone had retreated to their rooms to rest, mentally and emotionally and physically exhausted. Kanan had slid back into his and Hera’s room, unsure whether he was relieved or nervous to still find her asleep, and he had gotten on the Holonet.

A couple hours later, all he’s got is a sore neck and tense shoulders, and the growing certainty that the medication Hera needed to fight this illness, made primarily of Gattis root, is _extraordinarily_ rare to get, outside official Imperial clinics.

He’d sent a message to Goll, one of Cham Syndulla’s lieutenants, who Hera’d worked for, back in the day, but even the Free Ryloth group claimed to have no stockpile of the medication, no good source for getting it.

Kanan tries to sink into a meditation, but he’s having a hard time focusing on anything but Hera, so he reaches instead for the living Force, his mind brushing against hers, and her signature seems dampened, subdued. He sighs, opens his eyes, gets up and crosses the room, perching on the edge of the bed, laying his hand on her forehead. She’s feels hot, almost too hot, and he isn’t sure if he should wake her up or not.

He doesn’t get a chance to finish deciding, because her comm is buzzing, across the room, on her desk. On the viewscreen is Fulcrum’s symbol.

Kanan crosses the room again, stares at the buzzing comm. He knows he probably shouldn’t answer, knows that this Fulcrum person is someone Hera holds close to her chest, but –

The comm is buzzing, and Kanan frowns at it, and he sits down at the desk, and he answers it.

“Report,” Fulcrum says in the modulated voice Kanan’s only heard from behind closed doors until now, and Kanan is surprised when Fulcrum’s distinctive symbol gives way to a vid feed, a shadowy, cloaked figure with distinctively lekku-looking bumps under the cloak’s hood.

“Uh,” Kanan says. “This is Spectre-1. Spectre-2 had some problems on Ord Mantell.”

“What kind of problems?” Fulcrum asks.

“She’s really sick,” he says. “She said she got your data, but she also said the Empire is killing Twi’leks there, some kind of fast-moving disease. I’m –” he sighs, scrubs his hand over his face, smooths it over his hair. “I’m afraid she might not.”

He hadn’t even wanted to admit it to himself, but now here it is, lingering between them on the comm call: If what Hera said is true, if she has that disease –

“She might not make it,” he finishes, soft, quiet, upset.

“Hmm,” Fulcrum hums thoughtfully, the sound a crackle through the voice modulator.

“So, uh,” Kanan says, taken a bit off guard by Fulcrum’s total lack of reaction, becoming rapidly pissed off by it. “You asked a Twi’lek to take a mission on a planet overrun by a disease that’s fatal for Twi’leks.” He waits for Fulcrum to say something, but they don’t, so he presses on: “Do you at least have any leads on how I can get my hands on the medication that’s supposed to cure it? Gattis?”

“I don’t,” Fulcrum says. “I’m sorry.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Kanan asks, and he hasn’t felt this helpless, this out of control, in years. “Just let –“ and he falters, because he almost says a lot of words that aren’t quite right: my captain, my wife, my heart, my – “Hera – _die_?”

“Perhaps,” Fulcrum says. “Or not. There’s always a third path.”

Kanan says, “What is that supposed to mean?” but it’s like there’s a blaring alarm going off in his mind, because he hasn’t heard anyone say that, that way, since –

“I didn’t know the situation on Ord Mantell was so advanced, or I may have tried a different solution to my original problem,” Fulcrum says. “And now we have a new problem. I will look into my network for a way to get you the Gattis.”

“I don’t know how much time we have,” Kanan says.

“Well, then, you must use all the resources and training you have in the time you have,” Fulcrum says.

“What is _that_ supposed to mean?” Kanan asks again. Honestly, how does this Fulcrum get anything done, being so cryptic.

“I know who you are, Kanan Jarrus,” Fulcrum says, sharp, firm, “and I know who your master was. Concentrate. _Focus._ Let _go_.”

“Wait,” Kanan says, suddenly unsettled. “Who –“

“Look for a data transmission in a few hours,” Fulcrum says. “Fulcrum out.”

-

It’s late, deep into the night cycle, now, and they’ve still got hours of hyperspace to go before they’ll get to Garel, and then who knows where Fulcrum might send them. If Fulcrum sends them anywhere at all.

Kanan has been monitoring Hera’s temperature with the small thermometer in the ship’s medical kit, and it’s high still, high enough that he’s starting to worry about brain damage.

She’s been in and out of consciousness, in and out of sleep and wakefulness, all night. A cool, damp washcloth was helping, at first, but it has long since become useless. Hera’s just shivering and shaking, tossing and turning, rolling herself up in the blanket.

Kanan has been sitting up next to her for hours, one hand at the pulse point of her wrist, her body pale and small and fragile in the low night cycle lights. Sure, he’s seen her hurt before, more times than he can remember, now, and he’s even seen her sick before – he closes his eyes, trying not to think about _that one incident_ years ago – but he’s never seen her like this, never felt death creeping up so surely before.

He’d been sitting there, trying fairly unsuccessfully to control his fear, release it into the Force, and he had run his fingertips over her wrist, down the back of her hand, and he had _worried._

What if Fulcrum didn’t come through with their intel? What if Hera died?

Fulcrum’s admonishment, the way they’d invoked his master, was also bothering him, had jarred him to his core. Who was this Fulcrum, and what did they know about his master, about the old Jedi ways?

But, turning Fulcrum’s words over in his mind, he had desperately reached out in the living Force, trying to remember anything he could about healing. Almost all of the lessons Master Billaba had given him were in the field – broken bones, twisted ankles, cuts, headaches. He knew how to reach out, uncramp a sore muscle, alleviate joint pain, but he wasn’t sure that he knew much else.

He’d shifted around on his side of the bed, crossed his legs, closed his eyes, settled his breath, struggled to settle his mind, tried to meditate, to touch Hera in the living Force, to imagine the processes in her body softening, to send space and strength to her white blood cells, to nudge her body’s temperature ever so slightly lower.

It’s hard work, and he can feel sweat rolling down his own forehead, but he can’t get her fever to break, not even after a good half-hour of concentration. He sighs, coming out of his meditative state, checking her temperature again. It’s lower by four-tenths of a degree, but she’s still shaking with chills, her skin dry.

The knock at the door startles him.

“Kanan?”

It’s Ezra’s faint voice, drifting through the door, and Kanan sighs again. “Come in,” he calls, scrubbing a hand over his face and hair.

The door slides open.

“Is – is everything okay?” Ezra asks.

Kanan turns to look at him. He’s clearly been asleep, the way his hair sticks out, messy and wild, the way he yawns, rubbing at his eyes.

Kanan wants to tell Ezra everything’s fine, but he loves Ezra, loves him as much now after the past eight months as he does anyone else on this ship, in this family, and he can’t lie to the people he loves.

“I don’t know, kiddo,” he says, slow, quiet, thoughtful through his concern. “Hera’s really sick, and I love her very much, and.” He sighs. “I’m a little bit scared,” he admits. He tilts his head curiously at Ezra. “What got you up?”

Ezra shifts his weight from one bare foot to the other. “I – I felt something, in our bond,” he says. “You were – “ Ezra shrugs. “I don’t know, I just felt like you needed help.”

Kanan considers this. “I do need help,” he says, “but I’m not sure if you can help me. I’m trying to help Hera’s fever break, before it gets high enough that it damages her brain. I’m not sure I know how to teach you to do it, though.” A Jedi, Kanan needs another Jedi. He needs a healer, needs his master.

But Ezra is all he has right now, Ezra is who is in front of him, Ezra is what the Force sent him, months ago. Ezra is Jedi enough.

“Can I at least try?” Ezra is asking, and Kanan feels that pull again, the inexplicable feeling that drew him to Ezra in the first place. Something about the way the Force in Ezra calls to the Force within himself, it feels – unreal, at times.

“Sure,” Kanan says, totally unsure of this, beckoning Ezra closer to the bed despite his best judgement. (The Force moves in strange ways, after all. He can almost hear his master, saying this to him.) “Why not. You’re stronger in the living Force than I am.”

Ezra sits down in front of Kanan, on Kanan’s side of the bed next to Hera, and he mirrors Kanan’s pose, crossing his legs, his hands finding a loose mudra, resting on his knees, his attention fixed on Kanan.

“Okay,” Kanan says. “I really don’t know how to explain this.” He reaches for Ezra, and Ezra lays his hands in Kanan’s open palms, both of them closing their eyes. “Find your center. Find me. I’ll try to show you.”

Kanan drifts back into the meditative state, grounded only by the weight of Ezra’s hands in his own, finding it easier to slip into the currents of the living Force with Ezra right there with him, next to him, bright and luminous and strong. _Watch, kiddo_ , Kanan projects through their bond, and he turns his attention back to Hera, goes back to what he was trying to do earlier, nudging ever so gently at the space between the cells in her body, focusing as singularly as he can on her body’s temperature.

He feels, rather than sees, Ezra’s concentration turn to Hera, too, and somehow it’s as though Ezra is bolstering him, is strengthening his resolve, putting an even finer point on his concentration. Something is working, something in Hera’s body is _responding_ , and he is faintly aware of how she rolls over in the bed, turns on her side, facing them, a small, pained moan escaping her. _Slow, control_ , he projects to Ezra, and he feels Ezra’s agreement, Ezra’s understanding, Ezra’s cooperation.

Kanan can feel how Ezra is quickly getting the hang of what they’re trying to do, how Ezra is able to concentrate more easily and gracefully on nudging at the spaces between the cells of Hera’s body, and he slides his own concentration back, letting Ezra take the lead, staying with him, guiding him, supporting him.

Ever so slowly, Hera’s temperature starts to drop.

Instead of chills, sweat starts to gently bead on Hera’s brow, and the moment breaks when Hera emerges suddenly into consciousness with an almost relieved gasp, her fever finally, finally breaking.

“Hey, sweetheart,” she says, weak, croaky, glancing up at Ezra, and Ezra’s whole face lights up in a grin.

Kanan feels Ezra’s awareness glide out of the meditation and into the moment, but Kanan hangs back, tries to hold onto the edge of the meditative state, just in case, wants to be sure.

“Hey, other sweetheart,” Hera adds, looking up at Kanan, and he feels his heart crack a little.

“Hey,” he says, reaching for her, taking her hand in his, running his thumb over her knuckles.

“Are you doing what I think you’re doing?” she asks, and he smiles, despite himself, despite his fear. “My fever’s –“

“Kanan’s teaching me how to heal,” Ezra says, bright, bubbly, and it’s Hera’s little laugh, the way she reaches up with her free hand to wipe the sweat from her forehead, that brings Kanan fully back into the moment, breaks his concentration.

“You’re learning from the best,” she says, meeting Kanan’s eyes, the affection in her gaze almost too much for him to bear.

“Not exactly,” Kanan says to Ezra, never breaking eye contact with Hera. “I’m showing you the very limited understanding I have of healing. Give it a few more years and you might be teaching me how to heal.”

“But we helped break your fever,” Ezra says. “Kanan needed help, and the Force called me, and we did it.”

“Yeah,” Kanan says, and his throat is suddenly and inexplicably tight. “We did. For now. I’m not sure how long it’ll last.”

Hera frowns, and Kanan knows he needs to tell her what Fulcrum said, at least part of it. “Kiddo,” he says, finally glancing over at Ezra, “I think we could probably all use some water, right? Mix some electrolyte powder in too, okay?”

“Okay,” Ezra says, and he jumps off the bed, sets off for the galley.

Kanan sighs. “We’ve gotta get our hands on Gattis,” he says. “Or else – “

“I know,” Hera says.

“I talked to Fulcrum,” he tells her.

“You did?” she asks, raising a disapproving eyebrow.

“I didn’t really mean to,” he says. “It just happened.”

“Uh huh,” she says, disbelieving. She coughs, and he reaches for her, unhappy to see the blood that’s still coming up.

“Fulcrum is trying to work their network, figure out where we can get the Gattis,” he says. “There’s still hope.”

“There always is,” Hera says.

The door opens, and Ezra is back with three glasses of water. Kanan chugs his, sets the empty glass on the floor next to the bed, helps Hera sit up, drink hers. “Thanks,” she says.

“I don’t know how long this will last,” Kanan says. “But Ezra did a great job, breaking the fever for now.”

“Aw, Kanan,” Ezra says. “You showed me what to do.”

Hera settles back in, and Kanan isn’t sure if he ought to send Ezra back to bed or not.

“You know what my mom and dad always used to do when I was sick?” Ezra asks.

“What?” Hera says.

“They used to let me sleep with them,” he says, quiet, almost shy. “They said the body heat helped.”

Hera smiles, gentle, soft, the kind of smile that always catches Kanan off guard, makes him think about futures that are probably totally unrealistic. “Do you wanna stay here for the rest of the night?” she asks, and Ezra nods. She glances up at Kanan for a final okay, and he smiles back.

“Why not,” he says.

He slides over to Hera’s other side, spooning her from behind, and Ezra settles into the circle of her arms, his head under her chin. It’s tight, and warm, but they all fit. Hera sighs, an almost contented sound.

“Love you guys,” Hera breathes, drifting back to sleep.

“Love you too,” Kanan says, his lips on the back of her sweaty neck.

-

Kanan wakes up to the feeling of Ezra nudging at his mind in their bond.

“Wha’s wrong?” he slurs, groggy.

 _Fulcrum,_ Ezra pushes at their bond, and Kanan sits up, untangles himself from Hera and the covers. Across the room, the comm is blinking with a new data transmission, and Ezra is sitting in the desk chair, staring at the pulsing green light. Kanan carefully gets up, crosses the room, looking warily down at Ezra.

“I didn’t read it,” Ezra says softly, anticipating Kanan’s question. “I swear.”

“Uh huh,” Kanan says, picking Hera’s datapad up, unlocking it to receive the data transmission.

It’s later than he thought it would be, and he’s distracted as he reads, keeps having to go back and re-read things, because he’s thinking about Hera, thinking about how long they both slept.

“Looks like we gotta go to Gaulus,” he says to Ezra, turning his head to glance at Hera, sleeping fitfully. “There’s a manufacturing plant Fulcrum thinks we can hit.”

“She got really hot again, in the middle of the night,” Ezra says, following Kanan’s distracted look over his shoulder. “But I helped.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Kanan asks, bending down to Ezra’s eye level. “That’s the kind of thing where you gotta wake me up.”

“Uh, because you were exhausted?” Ezra says, a little too much sass for Kanan to handle this early in the morning. “And we have to go to Gaulus, right? So you had to sleep.”

Kanan covers his face with his hand, shaking his head, pinching at the bridge of his nose. “Okay, you know what, just go get Sabine and Zeb up,” Kanan says. “Family meeting in 20 minutes.”

When Kanan finally gets up and about, he discovers that that they’re already up, have been for several hours, since they helped Chopper dock the _Ghost_ on Garel a couple hours ago. Kanan feels even guiltier for sleeping through all of that.

He doesn’t want to admit it, but Ezra was right: He _was_ exhausted last night, still feels it this morning, even after six hours of solid sleep, and he _does_ need to keep everybody together, run this mission, if he wants any hope of actually helping Hera get better. Ezra’s abilities with the living Force can only go so far – can only prolong Hera’s life so much, can’t truly _save_ her from the way this illness is wrecking her body.

Maybe, in another life, with a better teacher, Ezra would have been a student in the Temple, would have been able to learn far more about all of this than Kanan is capable of teaching him, would have had a real shot at saving her life using only the Force.

But not in this one.

-

Zeb sets down a loaf of sliced, warm, freshly-baked bread, which he’d put into the oven as soon as they’d come out of hyperspace, and he slides a cup of hot caf across the dejarik table to Kanan. “Thanks,” Kanan says, taking a long, restorative sip, feeling a surge of gratefulness for all of them, Sabine and Ezra tucked into the booth on either side of him, munching on slices of bread, Zeb, confident and steady across the table. Yeah, he’s afraid, and he’s tired, but he’s not alone, and that’s the important thing.

Kanan drinks half the cup of caf first. “Okay,” he starts, and he fills them in as much as he can without upsetting them: What Hera saw on Ord Mantell, what Fulcrum had to say about Gaulus and the manufacturing plant, his analysis of the intel Fulcrum sent, floorplans and guard shifts, the one technician in the plant who holds wavering rebel sympathies, can probably be bribed.

“So, Sabine, Zeb, suit up,” he concludes. “Ezra, Chopper, you’ll stay here, keep the engines hot.”

“Just like old times,” Zeb says with a grin, but Ezra is sullen, quiet, frowning in the booth next to Kanan.

Ezra follows Kanan into the cockpit, glaring at him from the copilot’s seat as Kanan plots the jump to Gaulus, a quick couple of hours in hyperspace.

“Why do I have to stay here?” Ezra asks unhappily, once the stars are streaking past the viewport. “How am I supposed to be learning if I don’t get to go on missions?”

“You’re staying here because I need you to stay here,” Kanan says distractedly, not looking up from the manufacturing plant’s schematics on his datapad.

Ezra sighs dramatically. “I don’t want to,” he says, nearly a whine. “I did fine the other day, against the Inquisitor.”

“I’m not saying you didn’t,” Kanan says.

“Then why are you making me stay behind?” he asks.

Kanan realizes, then, that Ezra isn’t getting it, doesn’t understand, and he sighs, looks up from the floor plans.

“Ezra,” he says. He gets up from the pilot’s seat, bends at the waist, putting his hand on Ezra’s shoulder. “I need you to stay here.”

Ezra’s eyes narrow, and he tilts his head at Kanan. “Why?” he asks, less of a bite in his tone, now, more of a question.

“Come here,” Kanan says, and Ezra gets up, Kanan’s arm falling around his shoulders, and Kanan steers Ezra to his and Hera’s room, walks him inside.

Hera’s asleep, and Kanan walks Ezra right up to the bed. “Tell me how she’s doing,” Kanan says.

“What?” Ezra asks.

“Reach out,” Kanan encourages, and Ezra closes his eyes, stretches his hand out. Kanan waits, gives him a moment. “So?” he asks.

“Uh, her fever’s up again,” Ezra says, soft, distant, connected in the Force. “But it’s not danger-high, not yet. It will be, though, in a few hours, and every time I break it, it spikes back more quickly, so I don’t want to break it until I absolutely have to.”

“Will you know it, when it’s time to break it again?” Kanan asks.

Ezra frowns in concentration. “Yeah,” he says. “I think so. If I keep paying attention.”

“Okay,” Kanan says, and he rounds Ezra, moving in front of him, crouching down to his level, both hands on his shoulders. “Listen, kiddo: That’s why I need you to stay here.”

Ezra opens his eyes, meets Kanan’s gaze. “Why?” he asks again. “Because the living Force comes easier to me than to you?”

Kanan closes his eyes, swallows heavily, opens his eyes again. “Because I need to know that Hera’s not gonna die while I’m down on the planet,” he says, soft, a piece of his heart stuck in his throat. “And I need to know that if the mission goes sideways, I’m not her last hope.”

Ezra goes still at this, at the heaviness in Kanan’s voice. “You can count on me, Kanan,” he says. “I promise.”

-

And so Ezra stays behind, sitting in the cockpit with Chopper, watching the _Phantom_ descend to the planet’s surface, keeping one section of his awareness on Hera.

He does have to get up and break her fever, once, keep it from spiking high enough to cause irreparable damage.

Hera’s eyes glide open, and Ezra is at her side, handing her a glass of water, offering her the cool, damp washcloth for her warm face. “Hi, sweetie,” Hera says, coughing.

“Hi,” Ezra says, helping her drink the water.

“Where’s Kanan?” she asks, handing the glass back to Ezra.

“On the planet with Sabine and Zeb,” Ezra says. “Getting some Gattis, I hope.”

“I see,” Hera says. “And what planet is that?”

“Oh,” Ezra says. “Gaulus. Fulcrum sent us the intel.”

Hera makes a mental note to thank Fulcrum, later, once she’s able to sit up without feeling like passing out. “Is it a dangerous mission?” she asks, settling back into the bed.

“I think so,” Ezra says, somber and serious. “Kanan said I had to stay behind to make sure you didn’t die. Just in case the mission goes sideways.”

“Well,” Hera says. “That’s reassuring.” There’s sarcasm in her voice, but she reaches for Ezra’s hand, takes it, smiles a tired but genuine smile at him. “You’re doing a good job, sweetheart,” she says seriously. She closes her eyes, thinking about Sheela, about Sheela’s son, about the regret in Sheela’s last request to her.

“I’m so glad we found you,” she says, squeezing Ezra’s hand. “Kanan and I – we love you, very, very much.”

“Thanks,” Ezra says, the words sticking in his throat. “I – I love you guys, too.”

-

When Hera wakes up again, she doesn’t know how much time has passed, only that the way she’s waking up now feels different from how she woke up the past few times. Instead of Ezra’s gentle influence, a slow ascent to consciousness, she’s aware of Kanan, urgent, his hands on her, nudging her awake, helping her sit up before she’s able to tell her body to do it itself.

“Okay,” Kanan’s saying, and he’s breathing heavily, and she’s aware of the hard corners of his armor, of her head being supported by his shoulder pauldron. “Okay, you gotta take this, come on.”

Her mind wants to be awake, wants to help him, but she can’t move her limbs, and her whole body feels like it’s on fire.

She’s dying, she knows. She’s dying.

“Love,” she manages. “It’s okay.”

“Nope,” Kanan says. “We’re not losing you now, not after all of that bullshit,” and he’s touching her face, gentle fingertips at her lips, tipping a vial of something liquid up to her mouth. “Come on,” Kanan says, under his breath, massaging at her jaw and throat, getting her body to swallow whatever it is he’s giving her. “That’s it,” he says.

She manages to crack her eyes open as he’s moving again, letting her lie back down.

“And now we wait,” he says, worry thick in his tone. Hera spots Ezra, hovering behind him, before her eyes drift closed again, too heavy to keep open.

“How long is it supposed to take?” she hears Ezra ask.

“I don’t know,” Kanan says. “The guy said it’d be almost instantaneous, as long as she wasn’t too far along.”

“I tried, Kanan,” Ezra says. “But it got harder and harder to break.”

“I know,” Kanan says, heavy. “I know. You did your best, kiddo.”

-

Hera’s consciousness fades out for some amount of time, and when it fades back in, the first thing to touch her awareness is the sound of Ezra’s sniffles, the sound of Kanan murmuring, “it’s okay, it’s okay.”

Something inside her feels lighter, and she’s sweating profusely, and she shifts, turning her head, opening her eyes. Kanan’s back is in her view, and Ezra’s arms are tight around it.

“Is everything okay?” she asks, and she finally feels like she can breathe again, feels like the weight pounding in her head is lifting.

Ezra gasps. “Hera!” he exclaims, wrestling out of Kanan’s arms, leaning around Kanan, his tear-streaked cheeks coming into Hera’s field of view. “You’re okay!”

“I guess so,” she says, and Kanan turns, something heartbreakingly tender on his face.

“Go get everyone,” he says, and it’s grief, she realizes, it’s unshed tears swimming in his eyes. Or maybe it’s his smile, the way it contrasts with the dried blood on his forehead, the bruises around his left eye that are turning dark.

Ezra bolts from the room, and Hera can hear him hollering for Sabine and Zeb down the hall, and she reaches for Kanan, brushing her fingers over his beat-up face.

“What did you do?” she asks.

Kanan shrugs, his smile almost a grimace of pain. “Oh, nothing,” he says. “Had an exciting landing, went through some aggressive negotiations, got into a fistfight, stole some stuff, blew some stuff up.” He shrugs again, cracking a grin. “The usual.”

“Sabine and Zeb?” Hera asks, concerned.

“Perfectly fine,” he says, wincing when she touches the edge of the bruising around his eye. “I took the brunt of it.”

Hera can hear footsteps down the hall, approaching the door, and Kanan smiles again, leans in and kisses her on the cheek. “Had to give Ezra something to practice on, right?” he asks in her ear, leaning back, gesturing vaguely to his battered face, winking at her. “Ow,” he says under his breath as the skin tightens and relaxes around his eye.

The door opens, and the kids all pile in, smiling, sitting on the edge and the foot of the bed, and Hera sighs, relieved, finally feeling _right_ about something for the first time in at least four days.

She glances up at Kanan.

“Sounds like we’ve had a pretty good day, then,” she says.

“Yeah,” he says, fond.

-

A few days later, Kanan is sitting up in bed next to her, her head pillowed in his lap at the end of the day, just before bedtime. She’s been talking to him as he takes notes for her, tapping the last of her report to Fulcrum out on her datapad. Looking at a screen for too long is still making her head hurt, and she’s still generally recovering, still plagued by exhaustion and a lingering ache in her joints, but, as far as she’s concerned, she’s not literally about to die anymore, so that’s an improvement.

They’re docked on Lothal, and Kanan has resolved to go looking for work from Vizago and Jho as soon as Hera’s back to flying status again, because between her smuggling herself off of Ord Mantell and him spending way too many creds trying to bribe medication out of the rebel sympathizer on Gaulus, they’re flat out broke.

Later, though, she tells herself. She doesn’t want to get back in the fight until she knows she _can_ fight, won’t let the rest of the crew down.

Kanan puts the datapad down on the bed next to him, drags his hand gently over one lek, and she leans into his touch, content.

“There’s something bothering me,” he says.

“What is it?” she asks, glancing up at him.

He purses his lips, and shakes his head, like maybe he’s regretting saying something. “Fulcrum,” he says.

“I told you everything Sheela told me,” Hera says.

“I know,” Kanan says. “Hera – you trust what Sheela said, about Fulcrum’s gender, species, name?”

“I think so,” Hera says.

Kanan shakes his head. “She knew my name,” he says. “She knew my _master_ ,” he adds. “She knew – she knew who I am, what I am.”

“Mm,” Hera hums thoughtfully. She rolls off of his lap, sits up in bed, takes his hand. “Do you think she’s a Jedi? Someone who survived, like you?”

Kanan shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says. “I know – I know Master Ti died.” He closes his eyes. “I saw it,” he whispers, and Hera lays her other hand on his jaw.

“So who is she?” he asks, turning his face into her touch. “Can we trust her?”

“I don’t know,” Hera says. “I think, for now, she’s a friend.”

“We’ll see,” Kanan says.

He sighs, gets up, takes off his shirt, turns out the light, slides back into bed. Hera rolls into him, snuggling up, tucking the top of her head under his chin, breathing in his skin.

“Thanks,” she whispers. “Sorry we’re broke.”

“It’s okay,” Kanan says, rubbing his hand over her back.

“We’ll find a job,” Hera says. “Recoup the costs.”

“It doesn’t matter how much it cost,” Kanan says. “We’re all together, we’re all okay. That’s worth it.”

“Yeah,” Hera says, smiling. “You’re right, love.”

**Author's Note:**

> this is a #rebelsfourthexchange gift for [prepare4trouble](https://archiveofourown.org/users/prepare4trouble/pseuds/prepare4trouble)! it’s coming in a little bit after May the Fourth, but we can celebrate the spacefam any time, right? thank you so, so much for your patience while i worked through it, i wanted it to be as good as possible for you. you prompted me for Hera having a bad day and Kanan helping, and i hope this hits the spot!
> 
> all my sweet and loving thanks to [brahe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brahe/pseuds/brahe), who cheerled and beta-read this into existence. ily and don’t know what i’d do without you <3
> 
> find me on [tumblr](https://inconocible.tumblr.com/) yelling about rebels!


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